


infatuation

by spells



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dating, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Timeskip, atsumu is so gay. hes so gay and i love him for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27654562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spells/pseuds/spells
Summary: He’s not smiling sweetly, innocently; not even close. It’s a smirk. It’s quite the smirk. “Goodbye, Miya Atsumu.”Atsumu grins back. He likes him. “Until next time, Kozume Kenma."
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 12
Kudos: 68





	infatuation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [minahal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minahal/gifts).



> to my dearest aa. here's the so-promised atsuken, the best dynamics i've written in a while. i hope you like it; thank you for being the best.

**part one: his smirk**

All good things must come to an end. All things, however, happen to begin.

This particular thing — the two of them, hair dyed blonde and long setter fingers — starts in the evening. It’s raining, and a collection of overly-tall men gather underneath the awning, barely fitting together without getting wet. There’s still the aftertaste of seltzer and mint in Atsumu’s mouth, but he’s getting thirsty.

“This was a terrible idea,” says Shouyou’s friend beside him, and Atsumu doesn’t think he meant for anyone to hear. He looks like the type to talk to himself, to mutter. Slouching, in a hoodie despite the proposition of an occasion, hands in his pockets, eyes far from everyone else’s. Atsumu doesn’t think he quite caught his name, or maybe he’s just forgotten.

The idea in question was Shouyou’s attempt at an afterparty, ignoring the soreness of a five-set game and the freezing mid-December. The cold is worse than normal when there’s sweat cooling against your skin — might be a nice relief at first, warm bodies in the icy night, but turns into shuddering quick enough. None of them were up for much drinking, anyway, except for the city friends some of them invited, Tokyo people used to the bright blue lights and the dark empty streets.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” Atsumu says, slow but not ponderate, and the boy—the man turns to him like he didn’t mean to be seen at all. His eyes are just a bit wide, but they’re beautiful. He doesn’t look like a deer in the headlights, but he’s just as graceful, and he’s just as stunning.

“Kozume Kenma,” he replies without sticking out his hand. Atsumu can’t help the grin on his face; boys like this are the ones he’s always liked best. Boys behind a wall, boys with something to hide, boys that didn’t choose to be visible.

“Miya Atsumu. You can just call me Atsumu, though.”

“You can just call me Kenma.”

Atsumu likes the Tokyo accent; he likes the way they say things dry and clear, impersonal, sharp. He would never try to let go of his own, of course, refusing to be a city boy without the warmth that he knows his drawl gives him, but he thinks Tokyo makes sense within itself. He wonders if Kenma is born-and-raised here. The other one of Shouyou and Bokuto’s friends, tall with the freaky hair, didn’t sound like he was. He was warm and expansive, perhaps not in the same way as the sun on rice fields but as the buzzing yellow lights of a hole-in-the-wall ramen place.

Atsumu doesn’t think he’s drunk. He didn’t have more than a couple vodka sodas, and that straight seltzer with mint to top it off. His body might still be warm from the game before. Shouyou had said,  _ we won, aren’t we allowed to celebrate?  _ Barnes and Sakusa might have tried to contradict him, but Atsumu wasn’t paying too much attention; Shouyou had already made him want to go out, no matter what some of his teammates said, and he could see Bokuto and Inunaki warming up to the idea along with him. He’s not drunk, now, but it’s not like he’s tight and cold when he’s just another regular, sober person. The tips of Kenma’s hair are golden, and he isn’t holding Atsumu’s gaze.

“How d’you know Shouyou-kun?”

Kenma doesn’t look excited to talk, but Atsumu likes prodding. If he didn’t want to interact, socialise, why’d he come?

“We did training camps in high school.”

“And kept in contact?” Atsumu whistles, “That’s nice.”

Atsumu looks at him from the corner of his eye, and Kenma looks at the sky like he’s wishing the rain into nonexistence. Kenma sighs, and Atsumu watches it in his face when he figures he’s got to talk more. “Yeah, we—” he pauses, and tuts, “—hit it off quite well. Back then.”

Atsumu could be talking to his teammates. He could be talking to Meian’s incredibly beautiful friend, or to Akaashi, who he already knew, or to the chipper couple that Inunaki and Tomas are laughing with. Kenma stands at the very edge of the awning’s protection, continuously looking up at the sky, and Atsumu chooses to talk to him. Osamu or Kita would probably scold him for always approaching those who seem the least interested in being approached, but Atsumu’s reaction has always been the instant defence of leaving alone anyone that directly asks for it.

“How nice. What d’you do now? I take it ya’ dropped volleyball?”

“I’m a pro gamer,” Kenma says, turning slightly towards him. His hair is up, but barely; bits of it fall to his shoulders, and some in front of his eyes. He’s pretty short, possibly the same height as Shouyou, but seeming even shorter without the muscles and in the sweatshirt. It doesn’t come off as surprising for him to be a gamer, if Atsumu’s being honest. He looks like the type.

“Is it fun?”

Kenma looks at him and blinks.

There’s a second, two, in which Atsumu looks into his eyes and wonders what colour they are. He’d never seen eyes this golden before, this sharp, this pretty. All of Kenma’s features are pretty, really. They all fit together quite nicely.

Then, Kenma grins; smirks. Atsumu can tell he’s laughing at him, looking down at him, but his heart does something that it only does in moments like this — in front of a good-looking person, and after at least a first drink. His heart shudders, shivers, beats like a knock-knock joke, and he smiles back wider than he had before.

“I wouldn’t have it as my job if it weren’t, would I?” His voice has warmed up, and he looks so comfortable, now. Born to be better than people, and to tease them about it. No space for niceties.

Atsumu tries to find a better response than  _ you’re right _ , digs through his brain looking for a comeback, but he’s not fast enough. Kenma looks back at the street and gasps gently. He stretches his hand out from underneath the marquee and — Atsumu’s not sure about this, he couldn’t hear it well, but he thinks that what happened was — laughs quietly when he realises the rain has stopped.

He walks along the pavement without saying goodbye, but after a few steps he turns around and raises one hand, looking at Atsumu. He’s not smiling sweetly, innocently; not even close. It’s a smirk. It’s quite the smirk. “Goodbye, Miya Atsumu.”

Atsumu grins back. He likes him. “Until next time, Kozume Kenma,” he says, but Kenma’s already turned back around, and is definitely too far to hear.

  
  


**part two: his glance**

**to kenma [21:18]**

hey there, kodzuken

**from kenma [21:26]**

who is this?

**to kenma [21:27]**

miya atsumu. shouyou-kun’s teammate

**from kenma [03:40]**

oh, yeah. how’d you get my number?

**to kenma [07:03]**

akaashi-kun gave it to me. does it bother you?

me having your number, that is

**from kenma [12:41]**

no. how else would i talk to you?

Atsumu keeps thinking about him after they meet. He keeps thinking about his smirk, and his hair, and his neck. His lips keep tingling with the words to ask Shouyou all about him, all about his big city friend with his Tokyo accent and his molten metal eyes. There’s no way they are actually golden, is there? Maybe hazel, or light brown, but no one has genuine, proper golden eyes, do they?

Meian notices. Meian gives him the most pointed vague lecture Atsumu has ever heard, and he can see Sakusa snickering by the doors to the changing room. He can’t bring himself to care; he stands under the hot current of the showers and lets the pressure wash off the sweat by itself, too enamoured by the image of the boy in his head, the man, pale skin and dark hair and that gorgeous, wicked smile.

It started to rain again shortly after Kenma had left, and when the team had all gone back to the hotel. Atsumu had wondered, was Kenma already home? Was he on the train, would he catch rain when he walked back to his house, his apartment, wherever it is that he lived? Atsumu spent that entire night thinking about him, shifting in his bed and looking out into the dizzying lights of the city, all sprawled out in rolling hills and tall, towering buildings. Infinite. Muddled by the rain, sure, but sharpened by the winter, and it all evens out in the end.

Kenma’s image had become associated with that. Tokyo, rain, smiles. All artificially bright and acidic. All too easily tumbling into some sort of destruction, crumbling under erosion.

Pro-gamer Kozume Kenma goes by the online alias of Kodzuken, and he has a few million Twitch followers. His channel page is all red, black and white, and his profile picture’s a cartoon kitten with a smirk just like his. Atsumu keeps looking, half-reading and half-hoping he’ll go live. He does not.

Pro-gamer Kozume Kenma’s phone number is something Atsumu found easy to achieve. Which is to say, all Atsumu had to do was text Akaashi, and he sent him Kenma’s number, no questions asked. That probably meant Akaashi found Atsumu trustworthy, which would be incredibly honouring and a change, but Atsumu barely gives it any thought. He stares at the empty chatlog between him and the newly registered phone number, named nothing but  _ kenma _ , and spends the entirety of ten seconds thinking about what to send.

What’s wrong with being impulsive? Better than overthinking, anyway. It’s a way for him to be truer to himself, without the threat of overthinking and in the end putting up some sort of façade.

When he goes to sleep, at quarter to ten in the evening, he can’t get Kozume Kenma out of his thoughts. He watched a bit of his stream, blue LED lights lighting up his background — a studio, a bedroom? It was blue around the edges but pitch black everywhere else, hiding Kenma’s home from the internet’s eyes —, and he wished he had the option to watch just his facecam. Atsumu’s never cared much for games, especially dull, grey first-person shooters like Kenma’s playing. He likes to watch his expressions a lot more. He takes mental notes, and mental pictures, and knows he’ll find himself watching this stream more often than he would be proud to admit.

He likes what the soft blue light does to Kenma’s skin, making him look a tad bit ghostly but also warmer in comparison. He likes the way he’s looking off to the side, surely to his computer screen, instead of looking into the camera like maybe a vlogger would; Atsumu feels less ashamed for watching him so closely. He likes to see Kenma’s eyes moving, following the screen, as he shoots down an enemy and knifes another. He even likes the silence that comes with Kenma’s focus, because it shows dedication, intelligence, concentration, and because the chat does a wonderful job of filling up the quiet with these emotes that Atsumu doesn’t quite understand, but hopes to get the gist of.

There’s this moment, when a match finishes after a particularly mean kill streak by Kenma, in which he glances at the camera for just a second, and then down at his second monitor. He thanks subscriptions with a bored tone, robotically reading names off a list, but Atsumu finds himself starstruck by that one moment, because of that one glance. The single glint of golden, sharp as a sword, enchanted, has him feeling things again.

Again. His heart likes to skid off cobblestoned inclines when it’s faced with someone too pretty, and when it’s charged by just the right amount of alcohol. That’s why this is different, across miles on foot and milliseconds online. At Kenma through a screen, his heart just hiccups, and then it’s back to normality.

Atsumu thinks about the single instant of Kenma’s eyes. Thinks of it as just for him — he wonders if anyone else even noticed. He wonders if anyone else watching the stream had ever met Kenma in real life, had seen him and observed him enough to be left with the colour of his eyes whenever they closed their own.

Sleeping’ll be a challenge if Atsumu continues like this.

  
  


**part three: his piercings**

They talk, and talk, and talk. For once, all Atsumu wants to do is listen; if Kenma kept on talking, he’d never make any comments of his own. His own nature is being talkative, however, and Kenma’s nature is being silent. He prods all the words out of him, and learns that Kenma has plenty to say.

He listens.

He watches Kenma’s streams, and likes them best when he’s not playing any games, and instead has those few moments of talking to his chat. The chat can be extremely loud for the viewers of such a quiet streamer, and for a medium of communication that involves no sound at all. They’re loud, with all their emotes and inside jokes, faster than Atsumu can read; if it weren’t for that deadly gaze of Kenma’s, maybe even he would miss it.

It’s mostly through watching his streams that he learns how exactly to get Kenma talking, and finds out more about him, little by little. (By the third time he’s watching him, he feels a little creepy for doing so, like he’s intruding on Kenma’s privacy and watching him without his knowledge. He texts him about it, and Kenma doesn’t care one bit. That makes Atsumu smile. A lot about him makes Atsumu smile.) He finds out that he has a bachelor’s degree, he finds out he hates bugs with a burning, fiery passion, he finds out that his right ear is lined with black and silver piercings, his left ear currently a work in progress.

After streams are over, he asks him questions. Kenma answers everything, but doesn’t usually ask much back. If Atsumu doesn’t talk about himself, however, and treats their conversation almost like an interview, Kenma’s replies come shorter and shorter every time. (He tests it. He notices.) So he shares bits of his day-to-day, and Kenma laughs with him, laughs at him, laughs. It all makes Atsumu wonder what his reactions are like outside of ones and zeroes; he wonders if, when he reads Atsumu’s texts, he’s stone-faced, if he giggles, if he does that little exhale of laughter that he does on stream, sometimes, and makes the chat flood with  _ AYAYA _ —

If he were a teenager, Kenma would be a distraction. Constantly in the back of his mind, taking his focus away from any task at hand. Maybe it’s not even his age; maybe it’s who Kenma is. Kenma looks out from above and Atsumu wants to reach him, get as close as he can, so all he can do is climb. Bokuto makes a comment on how he seems more into it in practice, more determined and sharp, and Atsumu grins,  _ aren’t I always great, though? _

Kenma’s influence on him makes him want to train harder, do better, impress him even when he’s not looking. Thinking of Kenma doesn’t take him away into a state of infatuation and helplessness; he thinks of Kenma and smiles, thinks of Kenma and feels that little bit stronger, that little bit more capable, because Kenma is fascinating and Atsumu won’t let himself get left behind.

There have been these moments, on stream, when Kenma smiles right after Atsumu has texted him, too many for them to just be coincidences. Atsumu’s willing to make a fool of himself, though, if they are nothing more than coincidental. His heart feels bigger than his chest, it feels like a being of its own, trapped in its endosymbiosis.

They talk, and talk, and talk. Through the remaining days of December, through Christmas and New Year’s, and as winter really seeps in with the freezing cold of January and the constant thermal shock of leaving practice. Kenma laughs; Atsumu wants to see him.

Atsumu tells him that, and Kenma sends him  _ sure. I’m not going to Osaka, though. _

Atsumu doesn’t mind. By now, it’s later than he should be awake at, but talking to Kenma doesn’t make him feel tired, doesn’t make him feel sleepy. He could do this forever. He wants to do it forever.

**to kenma [02:23]**

i’ll come. next weekend?

**from kenma [02:23]**

sure. what do you want to do?

**to kenma [02:24]**

just spending time with you will make anything worth it

**from kenma [02:24]**

that was the cheapest line i’ve ever heard

**to kenma [02:24]**

gotta save the money for our date, right?

and save the good lines, too

i know i’m handsome but i don’t plan on selling myself on looks alone

**from kenma [02:30]**

don’t get ahead of yourself, atsumu

i’m an investor, remember? don’t go selling yourself like i’ll buy just anything

**to kenma [02:31]**

i’m worth it

**from kenma [02:31]**

… we’ll see

  
  


**part four: his scar**

Atsumu sits on the train to Tokyo and thinks about all that he likes in Kenma.

He likes more than his looks, no matter what Osamu accuses him of. He likes the sharpness of his perception, and the bluntness of his words. He likes how he doesn’t hold back; he’s ruled by the law of least effort, and thus he’ll land every blow single-strike. He’s accustomed to winning, but he’s not a sore loser. Atsumu likes his brains. He likes him plenty — he wouldn’t go so far out of his way for just anyone.

They’re not as young and reckless anymore, living for the thrill and the excitement, but Osamu still makes fun of him for his feelings. He accuses Atsumu of still loving like a teenager, with crushes and these deep, flushed pink feelings of infatuation, butterflies in his stomach and his chest growing fuzzy and warm.

Atsumu acknowledges the fact that he’s like this, and that there’s no better way to put it; he’s infatuated with Kenma. He doesn’t get like this all the time, fidgeting with the fire in his gut, his cheeks perma-pink and his smile not leaving his face. When his feelings come into play, when his heart shivers and his eyes widen like such, he becomes intensely sixteen all over again.

Two and a half hours in the train give you a lot of room to think.

He hadn’t been expecting Kenma to be in a hoodie, of course, but that still didn’t prepare him for what was to come. He hadn’t been expecting him to be in a hoodie, but he hadn’t been able to imagine him in anything else, maybe because of the way the sweatshirts hid his form, maybe because Atsumu wouldn’t let himself be overcome with expectation.

Even if he had imagined him in every outfit possible, in every piece of clothing ever created, he would have been positively surprised.

It’s just a button-up shirt, Atsumu tells himself. Navy blue, short-sleeved, just that smidge of colour lighter than his black jeans.

It looks expensive. From looks alone, the fabric seems richer, fancier than anything Atsumu owns, and he owns a damn nice suit for formal-wear events. Atsumu wants to run his hand across Kenma’s chest, smooth the shirt down his shoulder, feel it against his palms, against the tips of his fingers.

Kenma smiles, leaning against a pillar in the train station, his hair a little neater but still up. “A polo?”

“What?” Atsumu looks down at himself, then looks back up. Kenma’s eyes have trailed down, and he’s not even bothered to hide it. That must be good. That’s always been good — Atsumu just isn’t sure how Kenma compares to everyone else.

“Nothing. In-character, I suppose.”

“Kenma,” Atsumu pouts, and there’s the slightest snicker. It makes him feel bubbly.

Kenma ignores him, for the most part. There’s something in his eyes that makes Atsumu flustered for his own existence. “Do you have any bags to drop by on our way to the restaurant?”

“Oh, right. My hotel’s—”

“Hotel?” Kenma’s car keys jingle against his hip as he taps his fingers against his hip. Driving a car in Tokyo ought to be some sort of statement, even just owning one. It makes Atsumu curious as to whether it’s an expensive one, or a car just for its own sake. “I thought you’d be staying over at mine.”

There’s the pause, for all the implications to settle in. Atsumu feels his neck warm against the cold of the evening.

“I have a couple of empty guest rooms, more than enough space for you to stay.”

Kenma’s blunt and clever enough for there to be no way that he intended it to seem like Atsumu’s supposed to sleep in one of those vacant rooms. He fully meant his pause, every breath of it. He knows what Atsumu’s thinking, he can see his thought process, slowed by the honey-thickness of his blood. His eyes won’t shy away from Atsumu’s face, now; he swallows, and Kenma intently follows the bob of his Adam’s apple.

“That way you can just leave your stuff in the car. It’s overall more convenient,” Kenma shrugs, turning and beginning to walk away, slow enough for Atsumu to catch up even despite the hesitance of his flusteredness.

His car is, indeed, nice. Leather, sleek, black, shiny. Atsumu’s speechless, for once. Kenma talks in his usual curt, direct words, his slick, cool accent, but it doesn’t take more than a few minutes of him carrying the conversation for Atsumu to be called out on it.

“I’m jus’ a li’l… Taken aback. I guess.”

“Mm?” Kenma doesn’t look away from the road. Who drives in Tokyo? “How so?”

“C’mon, Kenma, there’s no way ya’ don’t know yer’ a lot.”

“A lot?”

Atsumu grins and tuts. He turns to fully face Kenma, and he likes what he sees. His side profile is soft, his nose just rounding out at the tip, the line of his brow straight from his forehead, his lips— Well, um. “It starts with lookin’ like that. Then you start talking, and yer’, like, the smartest person ever. Not just smart, but ya’ know how to use yer’ words. Then you show up wearing nice clothes and driving a nice car, and then y’ask me to sleep at yours, and—”

“You can sleep in the hotel if you prefer.”

“I’m not complainin’, Kenma, jus’ pointin’ it out.”

Kenma smiles, and Atsumu sees just the side of it, his face glowing in the red and white of taillights and lampposts. He appreciates the view for an instant before turning back to sitting straight, and smiling seems unavoidable, now.

The restaurant was up to Kenma’s choosing, for obvious reasons. With all of his money out in the open like this, covering his skin and atop four wheels, Atsumu’s afraid of being underdressed and underpaid for wherever they might be going. It’s been a long time since he last felt the possibility of not being able to afford something — being a professional athlete isn’t a small deal. It’s not being a stock-owning, business-running internet celebrity, though.

Kenma parks in an indoor lot, and Atsumu doesn’t stop to count how long they spend in the lift, no company but each other and the dry beeps of passing floors. He can smell Kenma’s perfume, he can see him clearly in the corner of his eye; hands in his pockets, the golden tips of his hair sticking out, spiky, from underneath the elastic. It makes him wonder how long his hair must be when it’s down, how far down his back it must reach. Atsumu looks at his back, pleasantly pressed in the dress shirt, and the porcelain pale skin of his arms. His mouth goes a little dry.

“We’re here.”

The restaurant feels like another world. A lot of Tokyo is unfamiliar, in some way, but the restaurant feels like the novelty of it all has been refined. There’s nothing human or natural about the design, the walls and floors in white, black or a cold, concrete grey, the ceiling tiled in white and lights. As a whole, the place is minimalistic and modern in a way that unsettles Atsumu; there’s a long hallway and a hostess standing in a midnight black suit, her hair bloody-mary red around her face.

“Welcome, Kenma,” she smiles with familiarity, her bottom lip pierced through the middle. Kenma’s not smiling back at her, but he nods in acknowledgment. “Follow me.”

Inside, without the out-facing windows and the violet sunset sky, the establishment feels more industrial than futuristic. The tables are sparse and the ceiling lights are gone, replaced by low-hanging incandescent lamps, copper cords holding them steady a couple of feet above the tabletops.

The first thing they order is the wine, white, and then the waiter walks away without giving Atsumu the chance to ask for anything else. Kenma watches him from across the table, his chin in his hands, and giddiness comes up Atsumu’s chest like sparkling water, like spumante.

“They do food to go with the chosen drink,” Kenma explains, before Atsumu comes around to asking. “Lots of ways to order, here.”

“Oh, sick. Ya’ come here a lot?”

“Mm, I guess it’s my choice for fancy dining.”

“D’ya dine fancily often?”

“No. Only very special occasions.”

Kenma’s smile has some sort of energy to it, low-riding, casual, and it’s a sort of energy that Atsumu knows. It’s effortlessly taunting, it’s naturally devilish; Atsumu’s been like this in the past, except louder. In Kenma, it’s quietly chaotic, but still endlessly familiar.

Atsumu has never met someone quite so interesting before. A lot of Kenma is familiar and heartwarming, but he’s a matchup of everything Atsumu likes best, a combination he hadn’t thought would be possible, or so impossibly right.

He’s not sure what he says, after the second glass of wine. He rambles on, they drink through another whole bottle; he eats the food despite being unable to name most of the ingredients, flavour and alcohol and words jumbling inside his mouth. His heart keeps beating louder than his voice, but he can’t speak up when the walls echo everything he says, so he swallows down his pulse and finds the clarity in the certain golden of Kenma’s gaze. His eyes really are gold, warmer than the lightbulb hanging a little above their heads, a metaphor for one part of the riches hidden within him.

Eventually, his words slow down. Eventually, instead of jittery feelings, giddiness and excitement sizzling on his skin, he winds down into comfort, lazy, warm, like he’s accepted his fate. The colour of Kenma’s eyes reminds him of boiling honey, on its way to candy. Kenma’s words are barely laced with wine, he’s still driving, and that makes them sweeter when Atsumu lets himself go.

Kenma’s replies are one-worded, or just as greedy. He bites back on them, but Atsumu imagines himself drawing them out. He thinks of kissing him, prodding at him like this and like that, hands splayed across his waist, maybe one holding him by his neck, silky black hair in between his fingers.

They’re in Kenma’s home when he walks closer, one, two steps, and looks down at him. Kenma’s face is blank; they’re in the middle of the hallway, the door to the games room open and the only light coming from the living room, back down the hall. He looks up at Atsumu with no expression at all, and that in itself is almost like a challenge, daring Atsumu to go on, to make him feel something.

Atsumu watches his face for a second. He scans through it; Kenma’s eyelashes are short and dark, his eyes flecked with darker brown and even a spot of green. There’s a mole hidden by the jut of his bottom lip, and a scar on his forehead that his hair must usually hide. Atsumu reaches up and traces it gently with his thumb, and Kenma closes his eyes.

“How’d ya’ get this?”

“I fell when I was a kid.” His eyes are still closed. He speaks quietly, his voice even lower than it is on default. Atsumu feels it rumbling in his own chest. “Three stitches. No big deal.”

Atsumu hums. He drops his hand, slowly, and Kenma opens his eyes. A question of consent sits on Atsumu’s tongue, but Kenma reaches up and kisses him before it makes its way out.

Kenma’s room is dark, his bed huge. Atsumu doesn’t stop to look around; he barely opens his eyes. He keeps his lips on Kenma’s, pressing like this, like that, like he’d imagined before. Unbuttoning Kenma’s shirt is a ritual, the reveal of his chest and stomach coming little by little, his breath fluctuating when Atsumu sucks softly on the skin of his neck, his shoulders, his collar. Kenma tugs his polo off with one swift move, and Atsumu’s hair sticks up in every direction. Kenma barely gets the chance to laugh before Atsumu grins and kisses him again.

Kenma’s soft everywhere, his skin even and fair and immaculate. He’s warm, too, and he flushes pink even in the greyscale darkness. Atsumu takes him one step at a time, easy, holding him with his fingers splayed out just like he’d imagined, again, but this is better than the ideality of thought. Atsumu kisses him, drinks him in, and Kenma holds onto him tight, with his teeth and his nails and all of his body, inside and out. He keeps holding on when their breaths climb, and when they even out.

In the morning, the light comes in sleepy through Kenma’s window, grey and cold. It’s January; it’s snowing.

Atsumu wakes up first. Kenma holds him even tighter than he had before, like a stuffed animal to keep him safe at night, a guardian and a protector. He’s decorated with pink and purple, all the love-shaped marks making him prettier to Atsumu’s eyes.

Atsumu only stays there for a few minutes, until the grogginess evaporates straight through his skin. He stands and puts some clothes on, wanders into the kitchen to make himself coffee, and the green LED clock on the microwave tells him he has no more than a couple of hours before his train leaves.

Kenma walks into the kitchen right before the coffee is done, quietly, yawning. He’s not naked anymore, back in one of his indistinguishable hoodies, his hair loose in darkness and light. It doesn’t go too far past his shoulders, maybe just down to his chest, the golden bits no more than a few inches long.

“Sorry if I woke ya’.”

He smiles faintly, not smirking condescendingly, but tired. “Bed was cold without you. That’s all.”

That warms up Atsumu’s chest, his whole body tingling with lovesick blood. “Want some coffee?”

“No, I might go back to sleep. When’s your train?”

“Couple hours.”

“Already.” The way Kenma says it, it’s not a question, and it’s not surprised or disappointed. He mutters it, mostly to himself, and Atsumu doesn’t know what he means. He seems so far away, even though the room isn’t that big. Atsumu can’t feel him radiating any warmth. “Well, you can take your leave whenever you want, I’m going back to sleep. Have a safe trip.”

He walks away with Atsumu’s breath; alone, the kitchen is too cold to stay in. Atsumu showers, changes, and leaves.

On the train back, he sleeps. Two and a half hours fly by.

  
  


**part five: his shoulder blade**

Kozume Kenma can be a double-edged sword.

Atsumu likes his bluntness, his curtness, the way he picks and chooses his words like he’s on a budget, the way he won’t hesitate to react or reprimand.

He knows this is different. Kenma only answers his text two days after he’s sent it, and his message is three words long. Atsumu knows exactly what’s going on, despite how much he doesn’t want this to happen, how much he doesn’t want this to be true. He doesn’t want to admit it to himself, but there’s not much escaping it, now.

It’s not hard to come to the conclusion that to Kenma, he was but a one night stand. Which fucking hurts, for the record. Kenma hung onto him so tightly, warm and soft and sweet, his skin plush, his kisses rich; Atsumu grits his teeth and pushes the ache of absence back down into the pit of his stomach. It’s not worth it.

The problem isn’t that Atsumu’s a coward, or too afraid to keep pressing. He does keep pressing; he replies as fast as he can, he asks questions, he does his best to keep the conversation flowing, but he can tell Kenma doesn’t want that back. Anyone could tell. Atsumu doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s not sure he can escape, the truth crawling out through the gaps between his ribs, made of pain and empty spaces.

Atsumu’s not sure how Shouyou hears about it. He’s not sure if he mentions it, en-passant, if Kenma’s the one who tells him, or if Shouyou grows more perceptive than he’d been before. Maybe Atsumu’s just more transparent than he’d like to be.

They go out for ramen one evening, and Atsumu hadn’t been expecting the blow. He’d been expecting another Thursday with one of his closest friends, a nice bowl of ramen, an extra egg, maybe some sake to get them through the winter night.

What he gets, besides all of that, is “How do you feel about Kenma, Atsumu-san?”

He chokes on his noodles. “I’m sorry?”

Shouyou looks more pensive than usual, and he sighs without looking towards Atsumu. He does that, sometimes, when he’s lost in thought. When the inner workings of his own head overwhelm him.

“Do you like him? Were you just into him?”

“Did he tell ya’ we got together?”

“I asked you first.”

“I…”

Atsumu’s not one to be at a loss for words, usually, but Kenma is everything at once. The exhilaration and the comfort, the steady rise-and-fall of a chest and the breathlessness. He’s a rainbow, sun and rain and all the beautiful colours they create. He’s a snowfall during summer, or the guttural warmth of the winter sun.

Atsumu likes him a lot. Likes the way he speaks, the way he looks, the way he smiles. Likes his hair, down to his shoulder blade, likes his eyes, caramel-coloured, likes his black metal piercings, likes his dull grey hoodies, likes his choice of restaurants and of wine, likes his lips tugging around a smirk, likes his nails painted green and his fingers entwined with his own.

“I wanted to know him better,” Atsumu says, and he says it like it’s no big deal, standoffish. He says it like a shrug, but his words are flesh and blood. “I think he doesn’t want that back.”

“That’s not how it works.”

Atsumu frowns, and Shouyou frowns back. He’s flushed pink, his eyebrows tightly furrowed, and he takes a short, quick breath.

“Kenma’s bad at people. He doesn’t put the effort into things, because he generally thinks nothing is truly worth it. It’s not about wanting, not yet. You… You have to show him he should invest his time, his affection, in you. You have to go after him to show him that it’s not a waste to go after you.”

In romance media, there’s that moment of realisation, the  _ oh _ , or that talk that makes all the curtains open, all the lights brighten, and every piece of the puzzle suddenly fit together. Shouyou looks out of breath, his grip white on his chopsticks, and Atsumu blinks at him.

What he realises is something else.

“Were the two of you together?”

Shouyou blushes darker and slumps back into his chair. He exhales slowly, and his smile is a rarer one, faint and faded, made of watercolour. “A long time ago. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this, I just think— You’d be good for him. He deserves good. And anyone’d be good for you, honestly. I don’t have to worry about you, do I, Atsumu-san?”

“I hope not,” Atsumu says, chuckling. Shouyou doesn’t ever look sad, but his happiness seems more default, flat, than ever before. “I hope things turn out fine. Turn out good.”

It’s not exactly two and a half hours; the distance from Osaka to Tokyo, by train, is precisely covered in 147 minutes.

Atsumu knows not to look at the time too much, or it’ll never go by. He can’t help it, when the towns outside all look the same, when the window and the winter turn everything blurry and muddy and grey. His heart beats  _ tick, tock _ , and he wonders if he’ll regret what he’s doing.

Shouyou sent him Kenma’s address, and he could guide himself off of memories, but Tokyo’s huge. He walks and walks, decodes the colours on the subway map, lets his hands fall to his lap and takes deep breaths through his unrest.

Kenma lives in a quiet, perhaps middle class residential area of Tokyo, maybe aiming low for the things he can afford but maybe good enough considering the house he lives in and the fact that he lives in it all alone. It’s pretty, traditional, shoji screens and tatami and all.

It’s noon, but it’s dark. The weather forecasts predict light but lasting snow; Atsumu’s hoping to either get this over with quickly or stay longer, until the ice starts to melt.

He knocks twice on Kenma’s door. Kenma opens it polar opposite to who he had been, the other night, in his pressed shirt and dark jeans. His current hoodie clashes with his sweatpants, and a vape pen hangs from his lips.

Atsumu likes him, still. Somehow. Thankfully.

Kenma doesn’t say anything. His eyes widen and he slowly brings up his hand to take his vape out of his mouth, but, besides that, all he does is take a step to the side and signal for Atsumu to come inside.

The house is all dark and empty, made of more open space than Atsumu remembered. He didn’t remember much, the other evening pink and sparkling with the wine, the other morning washed-out and lifeless with lacking. Now, his feelings take up space, too, but make it into void instead of colours.

It might just be the snow and the clouds, cold and looming through the windows.

“I’ll make some tea,” Kenma says, quietly. His low voice, lower than usual. “Make yourself at home.”

Atsumu can’t; God, he wants to get this over with. He sheds his coat and shoes and walks into the living room, a kotatsu and a laptop in the middle of the room. Outside, Tokyo is looking at him, so he looks back. From Kenma’s window, it doesn’t look like Tokyo at all; you can see skyscrapers far away, but you see mostly bits of greenery and other houses winding down his street, the lots big and comfortable, from the days of non-overpopulation.

“Here.” Kenma walks into the room, after a little while, and hands Atsumu a mug. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Would ya’ have replied?”

Kenma sighs. There’s a look in his eye, tired, worn, and Atsumu wants him to glitter gold again. “Atsumu, I’m—”

“No, listen. I’m sorry for this if ya’ don’t want anything, but— But I was told—” It’s so difficult. It’s never been this hard for Atsumu to speak. “I just want ya’ to know I want this. I want to put in the effort, if you’ll let me.”

There’s a moment, then, that Atsumu wouldn’t catch if he weren’t looking directly at Kenma. There’s a moment, when his eyes widen again, and it’s soft, and sweet, and just bordering on happy.

“I didn’t think you’d want anything more. I’m not nice to date.”

“Why don’t ya’ let me find that out?” Atsumu laughs, desperate, because he isn’t used to the way Kenma makes him feel. He isn’t used to not being in control, to not knowing what to expect. For all of his adaptability, Miya Atsumu feels like a fool. “Kenma, are you against this? Do you not want this? Because, God. If yer’ not, let me find out whether yer’ nice to date or not. Don’t assume I won’t want ya’.”

They both breathe. They just breathe, look into each other’s eyes, the room dark and crisp with the faintest scent of peppermint coming from their teas. Behind Kenma, the view becomes dotted with white; the snow starts before Atsumu had expected it to.

“Okay.”

  
  


**part six: his hair**

Kenma’s mattress is nicer than most of the hotel beds Atsumu has slept in. It must be a testament to his income, must have some sort of meaning — nice clothes, nice car, nice house, nice bed —, but when Atsumu climbs underneath the covers, he becomes too sleepy to care.

Kenma seems to have grown numb to it, accustomed, but Atsumu gets the chance to have the best sleep he’s had in awhile. The duvet keeps him from the cold, shelters him from the snowfall that will probably keep him here a little longer, but Kenma’s bodily warmth definitely helps, too. Kenma is warm like he’s burning, like a fever. He’s the white part of a fire, emanating heat in all of his glorious pale gamer skin.

In the nice, glorious bed, Atsumu sleeps in. When he wakes up, though, to his phone on the nightstand stating nearly noon, Kenma is sleeping soundly on his chest as if it were still dawn, violet-coloured and dewy. His hair covers bits of his face and spills down his back, straight and smooth, those few golden inches mixing in with the colour of his skin, in the dark. Atsumu runs his hand through it, pushes bits gently behind his ear, and Kenma stirs.

“Sorry,” Atsumu whispers, Kenma frowning and yawning, curling tighter into his body. He tucks his head under Atsumu’s chin, and it might have induced a heart attack.

“S’okay. Do you have a schedule?”

Atsumu weighs his words for a second.

The night before, they’d talked about what would be going too fast. They talked about what they’d be willing to do, considering distance, considering feelings. Kenma said he usually needed some time to warm up to people, to relationships, but that he felt good about this. He had held Atsumu’s hand, had smiled— with no superiority, but with excitement. There had still been the edge of a challenge, but Atsumu was more than willing to take him up on it. Kenma had held Atsumu’s hand, had smiled, and said he’d wanted this.

“No,” Atsumu says. “No rush on anything.”

“‘M going back to sleep then.”

“Mm, you sure?”

Atsumu can feel his heart beating in his chest, and he’s sure Kenma can hear it too. A lot of the warmth is coming from Kenma, yes, but also in the metaphorical sense. Atsumu’s still giddy with it, even though sleep’s made him calm. Kenma rests his hands on Atsumu’s chest and his chin on his knuckles, and his eyes are beautiful. They were one of the first things that got Atsumu’s attention; the colour of his eyes, the speed of his reflexes. All the little bits of him caught Atsumu’s attention, really. He’s been noticing them, loving them, bit by bit.

“What does that mean?”

He runs his hand through Kenma’s hair again, and holds his neck with it in between their skin. It bunches up above his hand, but it’s so soft. With his other hand, he prods Kenma’s chin just a little further up, a little closer.

“There’re other things we can do with our time.”

“Mm, yeah?” Kenma leans in for the kiss, but pulls away just as swiftly. “Isn’t sleeping good, though? As much as there might be other options.”

Atsumu tugs at Kenma’s waist and hips until he lies a little more properly on top of him, until they can kiss in a more comfortable position. If he slides his hand a little further down, he can rest it on Kenma’s chest and feel his heartbeat. He doesn’t; he’s too scared to cross a line and shatter the surreality of these instants.

Kenma kisses him once, twice. Atsumu pulls him even closer, feels something shift inside him. Maybe it’s not worth it; there’s no rush.

“Okay. Sleep it is,” he says, turning his face gently, forming the words with his mouth against Kenma’s cheek.

There’s laughter, puffs of breath on his skin. Kenma slides back down. “Yeah, all right. Good night, Miya Atsumu.”

“‘Night.” Atsumu kisses the top of his head, and slides back down into his warmth.

He hopes this is just the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please consider leaving a kudo, a comment or a bookmark: they make authors' days. you can also come yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kenhinabot), i'm always available.


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